raffish adj.

also riff-raff, late 15c., "persons of disreputable character or low degree," from earlier rif and raf (Anglo-French rif et raf) "one and all, everybody; every scrap, everything," also "sweepings, refuse, things of small value" (mid-14c.), from Old French rif et raf, from rifler "to spoil, strip" (see rifle (v.)). Second element from raffler "carry off," related to rafle "plundering," or from raffer "to snatch, to sweep together" (see raffle (n.)); the word presumably made more for suggestive half-rhyming alliteration than for sense.

The meaning "refuse, scum, or rabble of a community" is by 1540s. In 15c. collections of terms of association, a group of young men or boys was a raffle of knaves.

"large miscellaneous collection," by 1830, said to be a variant of raff "heap, large amount," a dialectal survival from Middle English raf (compare raffish, riffraff), with form and sense associated with raft (n.1). But this use of the word emerged early in U.S., where raft (n.1) had meant "large floating mass or accumulation of fallen trees, logs, etc." by 1718.